I would have to agree with kenmcd. I, too, am more than willing to assist with documentation. JackJ's tutorial is an EXCELLENT start, but there needs to be more. AND it SHOULD be located on this site, even if updated by the docs team. While the Wiki is helpful, it often doesn't go into the details that Jack does in his tutorial.

Also, I keep finding out about the various sites. Who are they for? Where are they? Doesn't it make sense that there would be a single directory HERE that would tell us where they are, who they are for, and how to volunteer if we so desire?

I have been a part of many volunteer organizations over the years, and I can assure you that the easiest way to lose your volunteers is to ignore their offers for assistance.

As JackJ said in the very first post:
"the stoney cold silence spoke volumes..:)"

Hello, hello . . . I this thing on?

First, I will also add my thanks gain to jackj's work and also to tjnemez for their excellent contributions to the documentations they have produced and we could also add ti and in fact others who have made useful offerings. There is no dispute here about the quality and altruism. I have to say that I personally had no knowledge of any of these works at the time of their publication, nor was there any attempt to collaborate with the docs site. Nor have the docs site shunned any offers of help. These have all emerged as independent publications. However, I will also state quite clearly that I would be happy to accept them as part of the material available on the docs site.

So the docs site has been quite ... an understement if ever there was one! Folks, we have a challenge: It's very easy for one person to produce a self managed document, but not so easy to manage a team of people with varied and interrelated tasks. Our aim for quality and consistency has been to the sacrifice of quantity of output. Maybe this has been a mistake, as often said " the excellent can be the enemy of what's good enough"

We have also been trying to create a mechanism for working more closely with software developers. Our aim is to produce user guides to coincide with a software release... this is the time when users need it most, not months afterwards, when there's accumulated a resource of public Q&A's on the forums. This is my ideal, but to date I have not reached a satisfactory agreement on either the principle or the mechanisms to achieve this. This has received a tremendous amount of input by a small amount of users on the docs site, so now maybe we should ask the question ... Is this what you want? Is it worth further persuit?

What have we been doing then? We do have an offering of some 10 user guides that are due for public access during this next week and I mean 7 days. We also have a XOOPS operations guide which will follow soon afterwards. We are also awaiting the exciting release of a community question and answer module that will probably revolutionize the resources of user "help, how to's and expert advice" Not for me to expand on this, as kudos belongs firmly to the author and developers who have worked real hard to produce a great XOOPS module.

So do we want help then? You bet! But not as you might think. We must achieve a mechanism for quality and standards for all XOOPS documentation. If we had 10 people offering help to write docs tomorrow, we could not mange you, or delegate tasks effectively. Throughout the history of the docs site there has been a reoccurring request for organisation and effective management. Let me say this... a forum is not good enough and that's about all we have. We have tried numerous other XOOPS modules and none of them are suitable for the task management we require. Developers use xoopsforge, so we thought we would also try this, but we soon realised that it's not really suitable for the specific needs of documentation. I am currently trying a non-Xoops open source task manager, but I wonder how well received a third party script would be?

We are involved in logistics, quality-control, standardization and accountability as well as documentation. These are processes that not easily achieved in a virtual office environment without good organisation and management and the appropriate tools.

If I had a wish list, it would be for help to create a coherent management system. Tools to manage personnel and workflow. This might include porting software into xoops. Or even seeing the whole thing from a totally different perapective.

And if all this seems like a preamble to justify our lack of output, well it's not. We are not happy with the situation and we share your frustration. I personnaly feel dissapointed at the lack of content emmerging from the docs site. However, slowly things seem to be developing, it's not due to lack of effort or a dissregard for serving the community.

Richard

Well timed and very well said Richard.

Thanks!

One thing that I miss from phpNuke was a new module that started development last year called Workboard. Perhaps it's along the lines you are seeking?

http://www.burnwave.com/

In short, it's a simple workflow package. When I used it early on it was only good for showing assignments and I know it's been worked on since then. It gave everyone an idea of where we were stood and who was working on what. But it was limited....

That mod didn't fit our needs in the end. One of our team members had a license for Microsoft Sharepoint Services which was much more robust (but third party and $$$). That worked out for us much better.

I'd love to see a module developed for XOOPS for project management. We all have our side projects and many of us collaborate and need some way to keep energies focused.

Speed, thanks for your comment and link. I went to see this site and yes, this is similar to our requirements. The criteria here is that it MUST be a simple system without a steep user learning curve. I have checked out several of these 'groupware' systems, noteably phprojekt and willow. both these are open source applications. The problem is that many of these systems are overbloated with superfluous features that get in the way.

here is a simple spec of what we might want...

Quote:

Here is a link to Willow issuse tracker, this is mainly for tracking software with versioning.

willow Issue Tracker login as demo/demo

From the Willow Issue Tracker site:
Quote:

phpCollab is an open-source internet-enabled collaboration workspace for project teams.

Modeled on Macromedia Sitespring, phpCollab architecture allows for the consulting team to share information with each other in one space and publish that information, when desired, to another space for the client.

phpCollab encompasses the most important aspects of project management, such as task planning and document sharing, and hooks into other open source applications for bug tracking and content management, for ongoing project support.

phpCollab's community, part of the larger SourceForge open source software community, is highly active and the dedicated volunteer team of developers, testers, and documenters is constantly enhancing the application to meet user needs.

http://www.php-collab.com/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpcollab/

Hello there,

Not been around a while, job promotion, home demands, and love life developing..:)

Interesting thread though, it was a hashed job really, so I am working on some nitty gritty improvements, and adding an exciting voice intro!! I have been told my voice is a bit like Sean Connery's, or is his like mine?

best regards

JackJ

Quote:

Someone has the tagline 'xoops my cure for boredom' James, obviously NOT you

Back to it ... I posted last sunday on this theread that I would have the Documentation Site open within 7 days, well IT IS. There is a news item pending but I want to say it here, because it's relevant to this thread.

jackj I hope you got my mail, but I took the opportunity to add a link to your site and also XOOPS For Dummies. It's a fine piece of work and a priviledge to promote it on our site. Xoops Documentation Site

Regards, Richard